There’s plenty to look forward to — and forget — in a 162-game Major League Baseball season, a game that settles into a rhythm unlike any other North American professional sport.

If you’re like me, as soon as you get your hands on one of those wallet-sized pocket schedules — as I did before returning from Dunedin — you likely look for and take note of the highlights.

When are the Yankees coming to town? The Red Sox? What’s the best trip? What about inter-league action? Are the Jays at home on all the summer civic holidays? And will the final month of the season be as tough as it was in 2020?

That mindset is all just wishful thinking now, of course, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic that is bigger than any game at any time. With that in mind, who wouldn’t sign off on a proposal right this minute of a revised June 1 Opening Day to signal a return to some sort of normalcy?

From wishful thinking to wistful thinking, there’s plenty of the 2020 Jays season that is already as good as gone. A rainy Saturday afternoon in Toronto would have been dry under the Rogers Centre roof and the third game of a four-game series against the Boston Red Sox to start the long and winding campaign.

The anticipation of Opening Day is on mute for now though, with only the hope that there will be a second chance a couple of months or more down the road.

Our look at what will be missed in the March/April portion of the program:

RYU THE DAY

Opening day was to be all about a lot of things given the significant off-season changes enacted by the Jays front office, but top among them the debut of ace pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu.

The South Korean left-hander dominated the off-season headlines when general manager Ross Atkins announced the four-year, $80-million US deal to sign the National League’s ERA leader from 2019.

In the glimpses we saw of him in Dunedin, Ryu certainly seemed to be the real deal with all of his new teammates raving at the 33-year-old’s array of pitches and commanding accuracy.

“Man, his last start was super encouraging,” Jays shortstop Bo Bichette said. “You hear a lot about him and how good a pitcher he is and than to see him on the field, you see what it’s all about. To be out at short and watching him and seeing Ryu hit the glove pretty much every single time … it’s really impressive.

“It’s super encouraging to see.”

The spectacle component of the Ryu signing also figured to be significant. The Jays were planning to aggressively market him to Toronto’s South Korean community as he figured to emerge as a national star in two countries. More importantly, seeing Ryu debut against the American League as the lead-of-the-rotation guy for the first time in his North American career would have been a highlight of the opening month.

BRONX ZOO

The mystique of Yankee Stadium can sometimes get overblown, but the first of three scheduled Jays trips promised to have some over-the-top hype to it.

The three-gamer was to have begun on Thursday and would have been the Yankees’ home opener. There’s a possibility Gerrit Cole, who the Yanks signed to a record nine-year, $324-million deal in the off-season, would have made his first start at his new home stadium.

Later in the series, Ryu would have likely got the nod for his second start in a Jays uniform and would have attracted huge attention among NYC’s large Korean community, an audience that may have dwarfed the Toronto version.

Looking down the road, signings like Ryu are something the Jays front office realize will be necessary to compete against teams such as the defending AL East champs. Seeing the big southpaw face the Bronx Bombers for the first time as a Jay always figured to be an early highlight.

LINE ’EM UP

Manager Charlie Montoyo dropped occasional hints in spring training about what he anticipated his lineup would look like, but with two weeks of Grapefruit League play remaining prior to the pandemic postponement, there are still questions to be answered.

That said and based on comments from Montoyo and Atkins and the results of the aborted exhibition schedule, here’s our stab at what opening day order and positional lineup might have looked like.

Bo Bichette (short stop)

Cavan Biggio (second base)

Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (left field)

Vlad Guerrero Jr. (third base)

Randal Grichuk (centre field)

Teoscar Hernandez (right field)

Travis Shaw (first base)

Rowdy Tellez (DH)

Danny Jansen (catcher)

REVAMPED ROTATION

Among those most enthused during the abbreviated spring was pitching coach Pete Walker, who not only had a revamped (and legit) starting rotation at his disposal, but a solid ace to lead them.

With Ryu the clear ace and front end of that five-man group, the seven-game opening homestand would have seen how that would have been configured.

When Montoyo was last filling out lineup cards, he was impressed with the spring efforts of Matt Shoemaker, who by those efforts certainly merited a look at the No. 2 spot. Next up would have been a pair of off-season additions: Tanner Roark (who might have slipped ahead of Shoemaker) followed by Chase Anderson.

To hear Atkins describe it recently, the fifth spot was still up for grabs, but when play was suspended, Trent Thornton was the front runner for the back end of the rotation.

VOTTO-MATIC

As meek as mid-week games are for Rogers Centre attendance in the first month of the season, a visit from the Cincinnati Reds this coming Monday through Wednesday had some obvious appeal.

Namely, a rare visit from one of the best Canadian-born players in MLB history, Joey Votto. The Etobicoke native was scheduled to make just his second appearance at the Rogers Centre in the past 11 years.

Given that he’s 36 years old and signed through the 2023 season, there’s a better than reasonable chance that it would be the last Rogers Centre visit for the six-time National League all-star and two-time Lou Marsh Award winner as Canada’s outstanding athlete.

Bonus content: Freddy Galvis, who was popular in his half-season with the Jays, is now a Reds infielder alongside Votto.

WHO’LL BRING THE RAIN?

More than a year in the rear-view, it will soon be time to cut the emotional attachment Jays fans had with Josh Donaldson, the team’s star who was AL MVP back in 2015.

Given that Donaldson was in Toronto in 2019 when Alex Anthopoulos and the Braves visited, it’s not his first time back since being dealt for pitcher Julian Merryweather.

That said, Donaldson told us during a spring training visit in Fort Myers that he is keen to be back in the American League and all those familiar ballparks — including the Rogers Centre — as well as being part of a power-packed Twins lineup.

Who knows how the schedule will be reconfigured if and when baseball returns, but the Twins were certainly among the more attractive visitors scheduled to the Rogers Centre in the first month of 2020.

ROAD WARRIORS

The March/April portion of the schedule was supposed to have 14 road dates for the Jays.

Besides the Yankees series, there was to be a quick two-gamer in Philadelphia and then a nine-game marathon through the American League East with stops in Tampa, Boston and Baltimore.

Of note with the scheduled Phillies stop and the Reds’ visit here, will it make sense for MLB to scrap all inter-league games when a revised schedule is pieced together?

BUFFALO SOLDIER

Just as there are big changes in Toronto, there was some upheaval at triple-A Buffalo as well. Most notably, Ken Huckaby is in as manager, replacing Bobby Meacham.

With all due respect to the man they call Huck, however, the start of the Bisons season was going to be all about fire-balling starter and top-ranked Jays prospect, Nate Pearson.

The former first-round pick was must-see stuff during his starts in Dunedin and Bradenton and if he followed up that form in Buffalo, perhaps a late May call up would have been in the cards. Not any more.

The Bisons were scheduled to begin their season on the road in Scranton Wilkes-Barre on April 9 with an April 17 home-opener in Buffalo.

SOPHOMORE BUMP

It has been a while since there was a player as hyped as Vlad Guerrero Jr. was last season, a debut which was delayed by injury and club control. What followed was impressive at times with a peak at the all-star game’s Home Run Derby and then a laggardly September in which he finished his rookie season on a 27-game homer drought.

That said, the 20-year-old worked on his fitness and agility in the off-season and, in the last week to 10 days of spring training, was hitting the ball with power and authority, belting a couple of homers and a couple near misses.

As much as the former No. 1 prospect could be under the radar, that was the case with Guerrero. And high on the list of things to watch in March and April was how Vlad bounced back.

WHAT ABOUT BO?

The sample size was on the small side — just 46 games — but man was Bo Bichette ever impressive in his debut with the Jays.

A quick start to 2020 may well have put the Jays shortstop into the all-star picture. There will still be considerable anticipation for Bichette’s debut but with the Midsummer Classic likely to be scrubbed, that pursuit might have to wait a year.

Still, with a .311 average and 11 homers in his terrific start to his major league career, Bichette has already emerged as a leader on the Jays and would have been one of the most anticipated stars in Montoyo’s Opening Day lineup.

Bill Buford spoke about moving to Lyon with his family for a year to write Dirt, and then staying five, about their lives now in New York, and the future ...

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